[EM] Re: parties working to throw out top-two primary in Washington State

[Russ Paielli]

Araucaria Araucana araucaria.araucana-at-gmail.com |EMlist| wrote:
> On 27 Apr 2005 at 13:27 UTC-0700, Russ Paielli wrote:
> 
>>So now the parties will need to have their own "private
>>pre-primaries" before the official so-called "primary." And the
>>general election will almost surely exclude minor parties.
>>
>>Or will the "we'll-tell-you-how-to-run-your-party" Nazis prohibit
>>the pre-primaries? Think about the implications of that, folks.
> 
> 
> The parties are forcing the issue.  They want a party-list primary.
> Look into the context here
> 
>   - Until last year, WA had a blanket primary.  Anybody could vote for
>     any single candidate in the primary.

I don't blame the parties for not wanting a blanket primary. My 
understanding of a blanket primary is that any voter can vote for any 
candidate of any party for any race. That's a terrible idea. If one 
party has a non-competitive race due to an unopposed or weakly opposed 
incumbent, voters of that party will be free to attempt to sabotage or 
co-opt the other party's primary.

By "sabotage," I mean vote for a fringe candidate that has little chance 
in the general election (e.g., Republicans voting for Jesse Jackson in 
the Democratic primary). By "co-opt," I mean vote for their own idea of 
who should represent the party (as when Democrats crossed over and voted 
for John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary).

For clear examples of how a blanket primary can be grossly unfair, 
imagine that one was in effect during the 1984 election. Reagan ran 
unopposed in the Republican primary if I recall correctly (or had no 
significant competition anyway). Imagine what fun the Republicans could 
have had with the Democratic primary (perhaps nominating Jesse Jackson). 
Ditto for the Democrats in 1996, when Clinton ran unopposed (perhaps 
nominating Pat Buchanan). Can you imagine the groundswell of outrage 
over something like that?

>   - The parties fought this on constitutional (membership) grounds.
>     They lobbied hard and got a party-list primary.

And well they should have fought it. The government has no business 
telling parties how to run their primaries. If a party is not allowed to 
decide for itself who its candidate will be, then what is the point of 
even having a party?

>   - Last September's primary was a party-list ballot.  You could vote
>     for either Dem/Rep/Lib candidates plus non-partisan.

I take this to mean it was an "open" primary: any voter can show up and 
request a ballot for any party but can then only vote for candidates of 
that party for partisan offices. That's a step better than a blanket 
primary, but it still amounts to telling the parties how to run their 
primaries.

> Primaries are held at the voters' expense for benefit of the parties.
> There is nothing wrong with the parties using a caucus instead.

The issue is not who pays for the primaries. Yes, in principle the 
parties should pay for their own primaries, but they should also be 
allowed to run them however they see fit. I'm sure the Democrats and 
Republicans would gladly pay for their own primaries in return for 
freedom in managing them. Such an arrangement would probably hurt the 
minor parties more than the majors, however, since they don't have as 
much money.

--Russ